1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process of selecting a printing medium when selecting a predetermined printing medium and printing image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally in the commercial printing industry, a publication is issued through various work steps. Examples of the work steps are entry of a document, designing of the document, layout editing, comprehensive layout (presentation by printing), proofreading (layout correction and color correction), proof (proof print), block copy preparation, printing, post-process, and shipping.
In particular, the commercial printing industry often uses an offset reproduction printing press in the printing step, and the block copy preparation step is indispensable. However, once the block copy is prepared, it is difficult and disadvantageous in terms of cost to correct the block copy. In block copy preparation, therefore, careful proofreading (i.e., careful layout check and color confirmation) is indispensable. Some period of time is generally necessary until issuing of a publication is completed.
In the commercial printing industry, most of apparatuses used in respective work steps are bulky and expensive. In addition, work in each step requires expert knowledge, which is indispensable.
With the advent of high-speed and high-quality printing apparatuses of other types, a so-called print-on-demand (to be referred to as POD hereinafter) market is coming into competition against the commercial printing industry. Printing apparatuses of other types are, for example, an electrophotographic printing apparatus and inkjet printing apparatus.
The POD market appears to replace large-scale printing presses and printing methods so as to deal with jobs of relatively small lots within a short period without using any bulky apparatus or system.
In the POD market, digital printing using electronic data can be implemented to provide printing services and the like by making the best of printing apparatuses such as a digital copying machine and digital multifunction peripheral.
In the POD market, digitization which has advanced more than in the conventional commercial printing industry, management and control using computers become widespread, and a printed material can be actually issued within a short period. As another advantage, the POD market does not require any know-how of the operator. Recently, the quality of printed materials by POD printing is coming close to the level of the commercial printing industry.
In this situation, digital copying machines and digital multifunction peripherals in the POD market have been examined (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-165722).
It is preferable that printing apparatuses suited to even the POD market flexibly cope with various printing media with different attributes.
For example, on site in the POD environment, customers requesting printing may require printing using various types of printing media. A conventional printing apparatus only designates a printing medium by rough classification such as plain paper, cardboard, tab paper, or OHP sheet for settings in printing. It is desirable to construct a printing environment capable of flexibly handling various printing media with different attributes so as to cope with even the POD environment. Such a printing environment allows setting a printing medium in the printing apparatus by fine classification such as “a specific printing medium available from a specific company”. It is desired to flexibly meet needs for various printing media from various users (customers) requesting printing on the assumption of even the POD environment.
It is also desirable to fully deal with the following situation.
There is demand to minimize problems: for example, the burden on the operator working on site upon reception of a printing request from a customer increases in order to flexibly meet needs for various printing media from various users (customers) requesting printing, as described above. Concerns are rising about the burden on the operator in charge of printing work upon reception of a printing order from a customer in order to treat an enormous number of printing media which may possibly be used by customers. To solve this problem, it is desirably prevented to request a cumbersome operation of the operator when selecting a printing medium which complies with a demand from a customer for printing. The cumbersome operation is, for example, to find out information on a printing medium for use from information on an enormous number of printing media prepared on site, and make appropriate print settings.
As described above, it is desirable to prepare a printing environment which minimizes an increase in burden on the operator working on site, while sufficiently satisfying potential needs in the POD environment.